Exalted: Age of Sorrows (Always Open/Accepting Applications)

[Imperialisium]

NationStates Name: Revlona
Basic Info:
Given Name: Samuel
Surname/House: Emberton
House Symbol/Sigil: A blood red blade that is lit aflame
Age: 29
Height: 6’2
Weight: 200 Pounds
Body Build: Athletic
Eye Color: Green
Image:

(Image)

Description: Dueling scar runs across his left cheek.
Sexuality: Straight
Exalted: Yes
Occupation: Lord of the Ember
Allegiance: The Realm
Biography: House Emberton is a noble house of the realm on the western coast of the isle. The current ruler, Lord Samuel Emberton has ruled for 7 years since the death of his father Tyver Emberton. Samuel lived an average childhood for a dragon blooded son of the nobility, never wanting anything. The only real difference between Samuels upbringing and that if another dragon blooded heir to a lordship is that Samuel was taught to hate.

House Emberton once was a greater house, though still not a “Great” house. It’s lands were double of what they currently were. What started with a perceived insult to the greater houses ended with the Upstart house Brightwater in control of the more than half of the families lands. The Brightwaters will of course claim that the land is rightfully theirs, however history and the Embers know the truth.

The only problem was that the Embertons were in a state of decline at the time and could not contest the theft if their land. So they waited and watched, the House Emberton had always been blessed with a healthy line of Dragon bloods and that was a fact that made them superior to their Brightwater neighbors, a fact they rubbed into the Brightwaters faces at every chance.

With the ascension of Lord Samuel 7 years past, the tides have shifted. The Brightwaters are lead by a young and inexperienced fool who can’t stand alone. The Ember had already grown before his reign, seizing several townships, villages, and even a castle that had been lost to them. Now with a war on in the North, and not wanting to be outdone by the young Brightwater fool, Lord Emberton has lead his own force of troops under House Vais banner to
Combat the bull. Yeah

Starting Equipment: Well crafted plate armor. Family Longsword called The Emberblade.

Intimacy Metrics
(Total of 50 points, may only put a maximum of five in each stat at start, can fluctuate throughout RP as events transpire and basically help visualize the personality of your character. Maximum of ten in each stat metric.)
Honor Rating: 5
Relationship Status: Married with 2 children
Intelligence: 4
Wit: 3
Academic Knowledge: 4
Sense of Humor: 4
Sociability: 4
Law: 3
Perception: 3
Compassion: 3
Temperance: 3
Valor: 5

Convictions:

Reclaim what is lost: House Brightwater rose up through the theft of a portion of our lands, we have long turned the other cheek as we were not strong enough to contest them. We are now, what was taken shall be reclaimed.

Hatred for the Brightwaters: The Brightwaters are thieves, cowards, and lesser men. These three things are taught to every child of the Ember. The old enemy shall be cast down finally.

Exalted Metrics (if applicable)
Primary Focus: Earth
Secondary Focuses:
Anima: (when you display your power it may manifest around you as a visible aura. Sometimes taking the shape of an animal, being, or totem
Mastery: Adept
Essence: 50
Motes: 5

Skills
(Total of 50 points and may start with a maximum of six in each category as initial limit. Categories are stat based unless stated.)
Language: 4
Able to Read: Yes
Reading Comprehension: 6

Archery: 4
Ranged: 2
Riding: 6
Short Arm Melee: 6
Long Arm Melee: 4
Polearms: 4

Crafting
Basic Repair: (Fixing simple things like cartwheels and your starting equipment)
Advanced Repair: (Advanced machinery)
Magitech: (Able to fix magical machinery)
Artifice: (Creating things)
Metallurgy: (How well you fashion metal)
Engineering: (Catch all of construction and building knowledges. A 1 is like putting a tent and 100 is building Dimensional Gateways)

Magic (For Non-Exalted whom may learn Sorcery though it is considered Low Magic and weaker but able to be mastered by anyone)
Elemental: (list element and stat)
Energy: (Raw pure power)
Animate: (How well you animate machinery)
Necromancy: (How well you animate the dead)
Animalism: (Control of animals)
Shapeshifting: (Temporarily changing your form)
Illusion:
Summoning:

Accepted

[Of the Quendi]

This looks very interesting indeed.

Current Events (Will be updated as time goes on)

Would it be possible to get a recap of what has happened in the RP thus far?

[Revlona]

This looks very interesting indeed.

Current Events (Will be updated as time goes on)

Would it be possible to get a recap of what has happened in the RP thus far?

Currently all the players are up north fighting a war against "The Bull", a Solar Exalted intent on carving out an Empire from the Realms Northern vassals and Satrapies. Zara Vai, head of the Great House Vai, is in overall command of the incursion with all the players (Lords to Common Soldiers) having gathered under her banner.

The Trip north was uneventful other than their airship being attacked by a hostile one. Currently the players are besieged in the Northern City of Lethlinburg by a force roughly the size of their own.

[Imperialisium]

This looks very interesting indeed.

Current Events (Will be updated as time goes on)

Would it be possible to get a recap of what has happened in the RP thus far?

Essentially what Revlona already recited. I can get more specific if you wish?

[Of the Quendi]

Essentially what Revlona already recited. I can get more specific if you wish?

Well I was thinking of writing an app for a House Cynis character so if anything specific to them had happened that would be nice to know, but other than that I guess I am good. I should probably app my character as already being in Lethlinburg I guess?

[Revlona]

Essentially what Revlona already recited. I can get more specific if you wish?

Well I was thinking of writing an app for a House Cynis character so if anything specific to them had happened that would be nice to know, but other than that I guess I am good. I should probably app my character as already being in Lethlinburg I guess?

I don't remember anything happening with House Cynis, it being the first time I've heard of it shows that lol.

But yeah being in Lethlinburg would be your best bet.

[Of the Quendi]

I don't remember anything happening with House Cynis, it being the first time I've heard of it shows that lol.

But yeah being in Lethlinburg would be your best bet.

I searched for the word Cynis in both the OOC and IC threads and nothing important seemed to come up (though there are plenty of mentions in the IC at least) so I am guessing nothing happened, just want to be sure I haven't missed something.

[Revlona]

I don't remember anything happening with House Cynis, it being the first time I've heard of it shows that lol.

But yeah being in Lethlinburg would be your best bet.

I searched for the word Cynis in both the OOC and IC threads and nothing important seemed to come up (though there are plenty of mentions in the IC at least) so I am guessing nothing happened, just want to be sure I haven't missed something.

Nope you're good to go on that count

[Imperialisium]

I don't remember anything happening with House Cynis, it being the first time I've heard of it shows that lol.

But yeah being in Lethlinburg would be your best bet.

I searched for the word Cynis in both the OOC and IC threads and nothing important seemed to come up (though there are plenty of mentions in the IC at least) so I am guessing nothing happened, just want to be sure I haven't missed something.

There has only been mention of a Cynis NPC named Zychere in the IC. No PC character and no deviation from the lore has been stated OOCLY or ICly as you've already discovered. Yes, I would recommend Lethlinburg as being where the character is simply because all the other PCs are there.

[Of the Quendi]

Great I will get to work on an application and hopefully have it up tomorrow (though knowing me that probably means no sooner than Monday ).

[Imperialisium]

Great I will get to work on an application and hopefully have it up tomorrow (though knowing me that probably means no sooner than Monday ).

Sounds good!! XD

[Of the Quendi]

I was right I won't be done today I am sorry to say, still need a good third of the bio, but here is what I have so far if there are any questions concerns or objections.

NationStates Name: of the Quendi
Basic Info:
Given Name: Numerous, known mostly as the Black Widow
Surname/House: Cynis
House Symbol/Sigil: (if applicable)
Age: 25
Height:
Weight:
Body Build: (Athletic, lanky, gaunt etc)
Eye Color:
Image:
Description:( What cannot be seen in an image or additional noteworthy info)
Sexuality:
Exalted:(Yes or No)
Occupation: (what do you do survive or social status)
Allegiance: (if applicable)
Biography:The person who would one day be known as Hua Yi was born in the year 745 into the great exalted house of Cynis, the daughter of Cynis patriarch Wu Wei and one of his junior wives. Wu Wei was a cruel and ambitious man who had no time for gentler sentiments. A fervent believer in strengthening his bloodline through carefully selective breeding practices he took several wives all for the purposes of producing stronger dragon blooded children. There was no room for love in his heart and when his daughter was born he did not bother to give her a name and referred to her simply by a numeral calling her initially "Second Daughter". From a very early age his children learned to fear him above all else and that their high position as his offspring did not protect them from the world unless they pleased him. And what pleased him was not pleasing to his children. Second Daughter and her siblings where from an early age put trough a grueling training regimen to prepare them for working in the Cynis family business. Wu Wei's children was taught the conventional lessons of high level aristocrats and expected to excel at them, but the true emphasis of their education was violence, subterfuge, espionage and criminality. From a young age Wu Wei forbade his servants giving his children food teaching his children that if they wanted to eat they would have to steal from the kitchen. The servants, which was punished harshly for missing food, would beat the children for stealing and in this manner Wu Wei's children had to learn quickly to become excellent thieves or they would starve. Wu Wei also taught his children to fight by pitting them against each other in fights with or without weapons. These fights never ended while both children was still able to stand but continued until one or both was completely defeated. They taught three lessons Wu Wei considered important, endurance, strength and not to love ones siblings. The winners would be allowed to get some food and to rob the personal possessions of the looser. The looser was brutally punished. As his children grew older Wu Wei would gradually increase the intensity and cruelty of their training. He would feed his children poisons that burned like fire in their veins observing their face for any expression of discomfort and withholding antidotes if he thought he observed any. He would send his children to fight with his strongest soldiers and deadliest assassins for hours and hours every day. The most important lesson Wu Wei wanted to impart on his children was however cruelty, as he considered it the basis for anything else. He was determined to wipe out any sentiment and compassion from his children. He went about this in many and ingenious ways. For example when Second Daughter turned six he gave her a puppy for her birthday. For six months Second Daughter busied herself constantly trying not simply to stay alive but also to keep her pup fed and living, no easy feat in Wu Wei's household. Then one day Wu Wei ordered her to strangle her puppy. When she refused Wu Wei summoned his eldest son, seventeen year old Zheng Zhao, and made him use his sister as his punching back for boxing practice. Wu Wei, who had a doctors ability to tell what the human body could endure, allowed a unperturbed Zheng Zhao to beat his six year old sister to within an inch of her life before calling him off. The next day he arrived with Zheng Zhao at Second Daughters sick bed and again demanded that she strangle her dog. Realizing that refusal would mean death the crippled Second Daughter strangled her puppy. In her weakened state it took some time and was not easy. Wu Wei then padded his daughter gently on the head, the first, and only, time he showed her any affection. He then punished her for her initial refusal by forbidding her to speak or be spoken to be anyone for a year.

In this climate of abuse the Cynis children either learned ruthlessness and grew tough or they didn't. First daughter didn't. When Second Daughter was nine her half sister First Daughter took her own life, possibly after an incident involving a disembowled kitten. This made Wu Wei so angry that he had First Daughters mother put to death and First Daughters corpse dumped in a river without ceremony or commemoration. Wu Wei then "promoted" Second Daughter to First Daughter though this would confer no obvious advantage on the new First Daughter which didn't stop Wu Wei from implying to his younger daughters that overtaking First Daughter would be advantageous for them. They tried but none ever succeeded. By the time she turned twelve First Daughter had become a master of the Cynis art. She could move silently everywhere in her father's house avoiding detection by even her own siblings. Stealing food had long since become an easy feat for her and if by some miracle a servant would actually chance upon her they dared not try to reclaim the food from her. She could not be snuck up upon by even her elder siblings and she was a master in disguise and concealment. She knew every tool or weapon, from knives to poisons to ropes, in the Cynis tool kit. She could memorize vast amount of information and could open letters in such a way that made them appear unopened. She could lie effortlessly and believably and could both endure and inflict immense pain. She had killed three people, a slave girl that made the mistake of moving during a knife throwing exercise when First Daughter was seven, another slave during an extended anatomy lecture when she was nine and a street urchin who First Daughter killed in combat when she was eleven because Wu Wei ordered it. Yet despite all her talents First Daughter had a very serious problem. She showed no sign of her exalted powers manifesting.

Wu Wei's breeding program for his own family had left his children with many extraordinary and mystical powers many of which showed from quite a young age. Most of his children had a much keener sight then ordinary people and possessed extreme physical dexterity and strength. Many had an extremely acute hearing to rival that of Cynis watch dogs. Abilities such as invisibility, changing ones physical appearance, communicating with animals, walking on water, shapeshifting, flight, to "split" into multiple bodies, put people to sleep with by staring into the eyes and various other and sometimes even more extraordinary gifts abounded among Wu Wei's brood. Exempting her great physical strength, which many have owed more to her training than any mystical power, and a slightly keener eyesight and hearing First Daughter displayed no such gifts at the advanced age of twelve and for this reason Wu Wei did not believe she would ever manifest any powers. This was the most unforgivable transgression First Daughter could have been found guilty of in her father's eyes safe perhaps from suicide. After her first period came and went without her being able to display any powers Wu Wei determined her a failure and a freak of nature. He sold her to a brothel. He took the time to personally inform her of her future, remarking that she was worthless and that the only reason she didn't become dog food was because she was pretty. Then he discarded her like a piece of thrash.

A shocked First Daughter was bought by a half crazed old madam by the name of Xi Yu who fancied herself a priestess of some fertility cult. Her "temple" as she insisted on calling her establishment was associated but not directly owned by the Cynis family and while once a very prestigious brothel catering to the highest clientele it had fallen on hard time. Xi Yu, was however a crafty plier of her trade. She believed that the pretty twelve year old she had bought would become a great beauty in time and fetch a handsome price. In time she would be proven right. The banishment from her father's house, the only home she had ever known the former First Daughter was in shock, bordering on the catatonic. Xi Yi, worried that she may have perhaps made a bad investment, beat her new slave hard to wake her up frothier catatonia. This did not much phase the slave, who after all was accustomed to far more severe beatings and barely noticed the efforts of a gasping and exhausted Xi Yi. After some time the slave escaped the "temple" which had no security that could deter her and ran home. She had no trouble finding home and even overcame the much more significant security of the Cynis manor and enter her home. But there her brother Zheng Zhao found her. He beat her, far more potently than Xi Yi ever could and returned her to the "temple" where the madam proceeded to beat her slave again, exhausting herself far more than hurting the slave. For the next month this ritual would repeat itself frequently. The slave would with great ease escape Xi Yi and run home, breaking in and then be caught, beaten harshly, returned to Xi Yi and beaten lightly. It only came to a halt when Wu Wei threatened to kill her if she ever returned again. The slave then returned to Xi Yi. She could have easily killed the old woman and her servants and guards, or simply escaped them. But she had no particular objection to them (the slave had yet to realize that Xi Yi's beatings was supposed to be harmful to her) and when she couldn't return home she might as well live in the "temple". Once the slave stopped trying to escape and seemed, at least in part, willing to submit to her Xi Yi became convinced that she had made a good investment, She believed the twelve year old had the makings of a great beauty and would one day raise Xi Yi's "temple" to its former glory. Xi Yi thus gave her slave the name Hua Yi, the Flower of the House of Yi and set about teaching her not how to become a common whore but to become a great courtesan and fertility priestess at the "temple". Hua Yi was happy enough to learn from Xi Yi. In some respects Xi Yi's teachings even bore a resemblance to Wu Wei's. A great thief and a courtesan both possess an elegance of movement and a spy and a courtesan are both able to conceal their feelings behind a perfect mask and appear to any person as they wish. Both trades required a healthy and fit body though only one required muscles. Other things taught by Xi Yi was quite different than Wu Wei's lessons but not generally hard and Hua Yi had nothing better to do than learn.

Despite her willingness to stay with Xi Yi Hua Yi was however quite bored. During her life with Wu Wei every minute of the day had been dedicated to survival and every moments sleep a much needed and precious respite from a harsh life. While Xi Yi demanded excellence and imposed a vigorous training regimen and frequent canings (Xi Yi had eventually grown tired of beatings that appeared to exhaust her much more than hurt her slave, and had introduced a cane to inflict greater pain with less effort on her part, Hua Yi had, mostly out of embarrassment for her mistresses, taken to effect being genuinely hurt by the old woman's cane) Hua Yi's new life nevertheless left her plenty of free time and unspent energy, an entirely new experience. At night she would therefore often break out of the "temple" and roam the streets of the capital city. She stole food from vendors emptied the purses of various wealthy citizens not out of any need but mostly to stave of boredom. This attracted the attention of small crime gang of street urchins led by sixteen year old twin brothers Shu and Hu. Shu and Hu earned a living by terrorizing street urchins and pickpockets in a pair of city blocks they considered their territory. They accosted Hua Yi and demanded that she leave their neighborhood. They then made the mistake to get physical with her, wanting to teach her a lesson. Shu broke two arms and a leg. Hu lost an eye. Hua Yi did not think much of the affair. She was utterly unmoved by the extreme violence she had used against the pair and if she thought of the incident at all it was in wonder at the ineptitude of two much older boys at fighting. Hua Yi had never fought anyone not her sibling, her father, or a Cynis employee and by that comparison Shu and Hu seemed almost comically inept. Hua Yi kept roaming the streets at night and stole what she wanted. Though trained to be observant and perceptive she cared little for the upheavals that followed the collapse of the Shu-Hu gang and when a couple of weeks later she was attacked by five young men she didn't link this to an attempt by another gang to assert control over the Shu-Hu territory and she never bothered to ask any of the five young men why they attacked her after she had beaten them, even though at least two was still able to speak after the fight. Feeling refreshed by the incident, though still confounded by the utter incompetence of the fighters she faced, Hua Yi just kept running around the city at night doing as she pleased. She did however notice that street urchins that had used to look upon her with anger now began to run away from her or show deference but thought little of it. She had concluded that the world outside the Cynis family was a strange and incomprehensible place of weaklings.

One day Hua Yi noticed a slightly younger boy following her. The street urchin appeared to do a very poor job of hiding his pursuit and when Hua Yi decided to loose him she easily managed it. But a couple of days later he was again running after her. At first she did not much care, but eventually she grew slightly annoyed. Then she began to wonder if the boy was some sort of supremely incompetent spy or assassin. He didn't look it. A scrawny, filthy whelp with a constantly running nose, a starved look about him and a sickly disposition and clinging to some sort of stuffed animal that was even more filthy than he was, Hua Yi had seen him being pushed around by other street urchins. Still better safe than sorry Hua Yi decided she might as well kill him. She accosted him and easily overwhelmed him as he put up no defense whatsoever. She almost killed him instantly but perhaps because she worried about getting his smell on her if she killed him or simply because she was bored she decided to talk to him a bit first demanding to hear why he followed her.

The street urchins, through much terrified sobbing, explained that he was afraid of the street gangs who wanted to gauge his eyes out and use him as a beggar and that he was following Hua Yi so they wouldn't dare touch him. Annoyed by the sobs Hua Yi slapped the street urchins a bit but then thought better of it because of his smell. Her interest piqued just enough to restrain her lethal impulses she inquired why the street gangs wouldn't dare to hurt the boy if he was following Hua Yi. The street urchin then gave a very inflated account of Hua Yi's defeat of the street gangs in which she was depicted as an almost godlike figure. Hua Yi, who had never heard a kind word about herself was quite pleased by the account. She decided to let the street urchins live. "I suppose I could look after you." She remarked magnanimously. Hua Yi then decided to make the boy her slave. She asked his name, but then changed her mind. "I shall call you Inu Hua, Hua Yi's dog." She declared. She then determined that she didn't want a filthy dog. She took Inu Hua to a river and demanded he go out into it and clean up. He refused, scared of the water. Hua Yi wondered if perhaps it had not been wiser to kill the street urchin. But out of pride more than anything else she determined not to change her mind. She beat her dog a bit but though she hadn't thought she beat him hard he wailed and seemed genuinely hurt. She allowed him to recover a bit and then she pulled him out into the river and dragged him through it until the worst of his stench had abated. Then she took him to the slave market and stole some chains which, after much whimpering and struggling she managed to put on her dog. Having once seen a wealthy boy play a game involving the throwing and fetching of a stick with his dog in a park Hua Yi decided to teach Inu Hua this game, though she soon grew bored with the slow pace with which the dog could retrieve her sticks. So instead she fetched him some food and was for the first time pleased with her dog as the food elicited the kind of adoration in his eyes that a master should expect from their dog.

They then talked a bit. From his conversation Hua Yi soon concluded that her dog was both stupid and uneducated. She wondered, based on her limited interactions with Shu and Hu and the five young men she had bested if this was common to ordinary folk. Both Wu Wei and especially Xi Yi's servants also seemed rather unimpressive intellectually. Her dog told Hua Yi about his fear of having his eyes gauged out. The dog's older half brother had had another brother of the dog gelded and blinded because it made him a better singer and beggar and allowed the eldest brother to afford buying wine and women and now the dog feared that the same would soon be done to him, or that he would, like his sisters be sold to bad men. The dog seemed surprisingly perturbed by this, in Hua Yi's mind, perfectly normal familial behavior. The only parts of the story she could not make sense of was why this older brother was so scared of her and why he spent his money so frivolously. Beginning to feel tired Hua Yi decided to return home to get some sleep before she had to get up and follow Xi Yi's lessons. The dog however began to cry when she expressed a desire to leave saying that he was afraid of his brother if she left him. Annoyed by this excessive reaction to the brother's perfectly reasonable desire to earn some money from his sibling Hua Yi considered once again to kill her dog but again she decided against it. To calm the dog down she beat him a bit, to her frustration this however only increased the extremity of his emotional reaction. Desperate she promised him that she would deal with his brother and not allow him to take his eyes. After all, Hua Yi thought, if playing with the stick had been an uninspired game when the dog had his eyes it probably wouldn't be more fun if he didn't. After her beating the dog could not walk an a frustrated Hua Yi stole a blanket and had him dragged under a bridge to put him to bed. She promised she would return for him the next night and warned him that if he wasn't clean he would be punished.

After leaving her dog under the bridge Hua Yi went out to find a street urchin. They fled from her, but this was no problem and she quickly caught one demanding to know where her dog's brother lived. After some beatings the street urchin directed her to another street urchin until she found the dog's brothers house. She then broke into it and slit the dog's older brother and another young man's throat (she wasn't sure which was the dog's brother so she decided to take both). Then she went home to Xi Yi's "temple" and went to bed, dreaming sweet dreams.

The next day Hua Yi was rather absent minded at her lessons with Xi Yi. Xi Yi had determined that Hua Yi should learn music, singing, painting, poetry, theater, calligraphy and every other art known to man as well as the more mystical arts of love and fertility rituals that Xi Yi always alluded to but had not yet introduced Hua Yi to. Though a capable student who, from her time with Wu Wei, was excellent at learning to imitate perfectly new skills, that day Hua Yi's absentmindedness resulted in several canings. When night finally came she broke out of Xi Yi's house and went to look for her dog under the bridge. When she found him where she had left him, having stayed the whole day under the bridge to nurse his wound she observed that though he appeared to have made an attempt to keep himself clean he still smelled. So she beat him. But she tried to beat him as Xi Yi beat her not as Wu Wei did and she was quite pleased when he didn't respond with excessive wailing but accepted in silence his beating. "Good dog." She said.

So passed the next couple of years of Hua Yi's life. During the day she was an attendant and capable student of everything Xi Yi wanted her to learn. She was taught how to always be pleasing, how to read people to learn their deepest desire (a talent that required much the same skills as telling whether a person lied), how to play musical instruments and sing, how to comb her hair, wash her body, apply cosmetics and eventually also a theoretical introduction to the mystical art of love and the rituals of Xi Yi's fertility cult. At night she would run around the city with her dog and eventually assemble a small gathering of weak and poor street urchins who preferred to be abused by Hua Yi to chance things with the street gangs. Playing with her dog and this growing retinue of servants Hua Yi's personality underwent a subtle change. Though she frequently beat her charges she always did so in the Xi Yi manner never the Wu Wei one and though she demanded they serve her in all things she also looked after them and reacted with great fury when the street gangs harassed them. Once when a pretty girl in Hua Yi's entourage was stolen by a gang the gang leader and his entire household died suddenly, apparently from having eaten rotten fish while the gang leader himself washed up on the side of the river a couple of days later, the same day the man who had bought the girl inexplicably decided to walk of a balcony six stores above street level. The girl was returned to Hua Yi, who beat her softly for having been taken. Another time a relative of the man Hua Yi had murdered alongside her dog's brother died when one of his warehouses burned down with him and a bunch of his friends inside it. It was never established why they had not walked out of the building when it caught fire. Little by little Hua Yi became the leader of her own, much feared, street gang as she taught her street urchins how to steal and won a territory in which no other street gang was in a hurry too encroach. The things her street urchins stole she had little use of and she often threw them away, though she never suffered the urchins to keep anything from her. She became know as the Night Stalker or the Flower of Death. As time passed Hua Yi began to become acutely aware of the differences in social classes in the imperial capital. The circumstances of her street urchins seemed to be remarkably inferior to her own and her own inferior to that of more wealthy citizens. It puzzled Hua Yi. In Wu Wei's house she had often gone hungry, she had slept on the floor with the animals, she had rarely washed herself and never with soap or water that wasn't freezing. Yet at the same time she had been surrounded by enormous wealth, she had learned to read and write perfectly in several languages, she had learned philosophy, history, science and math and magic and all such things. She had been both rich and privileged and the opposite. Now she was only the opposite, for though Xi Yi's "temple" was a different world from the mostly homeless and always poor street urchins it was clear to Hua Yi that the relative wealth there was not hers and she was only a slave who would need to please Xi Yi to retain her relative comfort. Hua Yi also began to learn something else that surprised her. Though some of Hua Yi's street urchins had a family background quite similar to her or her dogs most didn't. Most spoke of drunken and unemployed parents who often beat them (in the Xi Yi, not Wu Wei manner if their bruises and absence of broken bones was any indication) but there was few mentions of eye gauging, gelding or sales. This confounded Hua Yi and yet her street urchins would point out to her clean children in nice clothes who lead an even more different life. Hua Yi would follow such children and break into their houses and in these modest hovels, so far removed from the palatial setting of the Cynis manor she would see the most remarkably things. Children being kissed and hugged by their parents, being given food without having to fight for it, showing affection towards siblings, having pets. It shocked Hua Yi, and it lit a fire inside of her. Angry Hua Yi, perceptive as ever, became acutely aware of the fact that a small group of people in the capital seemed to live in great wealth and have good and happy lives while the great majority was a poor and abused underclass. It angered her greatly and one day when a highborn noble reproached Hua Yi and her street urchins from playing in a private park she followed him and strangled him once out of sight of her street urchins. She then went to her dog. He was sick and Hua Yi, having learned plenty of medicine and healing from her father observed that scabs on his neck where the manacles she had put on him had cut him showed sign of metallic poisoning from the shackles. She took them of him and then nursed him back to health. "Dog!" She said. "You are no longer my slave. You are my fri ... My ... My servant." She declared. Thereafter she became kinder towards all her street urchins. She took to calling them her children, though few were much younger than her and a few a little older. She no longer made her "children" steal at great difficulty trinkets that she then simply threw away. Instead she taught them to read and write and fed them by charging protection money from local vendors who did not wish to anger the Flower of Death and began to care for them. She did not stop beating them for disobedience and she continued to demand loyalty but she no longer displayed cruelty towards them.

As this transformation of Hua Yi's temperament occurred she also underwent a physical transformation. No longer a scrawny half savage, though erudite, assassins apprentice Hua Yi had as Xi Yi always hoped blossomed to become a rare beauty and she had learned everything Xi Yi had taught her about elegance and grace, art and beauty and above all seduction and love. Xi Yi took to pay minstrels to compose songs about the beauty of the Flower of Yi, whose face put all flowers to shame, whose beauty was so enchanting that fish would seize to swim or birds fall from the sky upon seeing it, whose luminous countenance made the moon she away in embarrassment. Such songs was of course exaggerated but they contained no small amount of truth as attested to by the fact that they became quite popular and that the minstrels seemed to have no trouble coming up with this (and no desire to charge Xi Yi much money for them). Xi Yi began to take Hua Yi, dressed in fine silks and jewelry on various social outings introducing her to high society and Hua Yi, possessing every social grace and managing to tread the very fine line between innocence and flirtatiousness became quite a sensation. Already when Hua Yi was fourteen Xi Yi had received generous offers from men interesting in spending the first night with Hua Yi. By the time she was fifteen her virginity was priced much higher than the price Xi Yi had payed Wu Wei. Yet Xi Yi waited, teasing the market with Hua Yi's various social appearances and by more songs about the Flower of Yi. Xi Yi determined that when Hua Yi was seventeen she would hold an auction. Until then the crafty madam began taking great loans from moneylenders to begin the restoration of her "temple". Using Hua Yi's Virginia as collateral Xi Yi had no trouble obtaining such loans.

None of this was known to Hua Yi's "children". When she was among them she dressed exclusively in a semi-militarized uniform of black leather and changed her appearance to that of a gang member. Only Inu Hua knew that the stern and brutal dark robed mistress of the slums and shanty towns of the imperial capital was the same person as the beautiful flower in colorful silk attending high society events. Hua Yi's "children", known now as "the Children of the Night" had become a fearful street gang. Having taught her children to read and write Hua Yi then proceeded to teach them the lessons of her childhood with Wu Wei (though with less brutality). While her children could not learn the more extraordinary skills that Hua Yi herself had been sold for failing to exhibit, teaching them how to fight, how to move unseen, how to spy, how to steal; this was no trouble at all, and as Hua Yi's virginity auction approached the Flower of Death's Night Children had become a fearsome street gang. Taking in young street urchins and giving them a home where strict discipline and harsh treatments co-existed with community and companionship the Children of the Night began to resemble less a street gang and more of a war band. By no particular effort of Hua Yi's she was approached first by ordinary street vendors, later by tradesmen and eventually by wealthy merchants and industrialists who with no prodding offered her jade and favors for her forbearance. This eventually was followed by visits from leaders of other street gangs who offered the best part of their business and sought the "advice" of their "esteemed older sister". This was hardly surprising, hardly a single fully initiated member of the Children of the Night was now unable to take on a Shu and Hu simultaneously and win, and no one ever talked of geldings, gauging or selling them. Yet eventually this rise of the Children of the Night would draw the attention of the Cynis family.

Wu Wei, the empresses spy master and supreme crime lord of the empire could not of course be bothered by some upstart street gang but his favorite son Zheng Zhao, crime lord of the capital, could at least be bothered to delegate to his younger half brother, Hua YI's full brother, Xh Han, to put pressure on the Children of the Night. As she was approached by Xh Han, who did not recognize his sister, Hua Yi thought first to kill them as retaliation for her family's past abuses, but she restrained herself. Instead she decided to work with the Cynis family. The Cynis family had plenty of gang soldiers, brutish creatures that could be relied upon to kill, rob or destroy people or things. But the Children of the Night had different and more sophisticated talents. Observant, stealthy and literate the Children of the Night had long since seized stealing things, after all they received tributes that easily payed their way, and had instead taken to steal secrets. They would sneak up upon prominent people, having learned to disguise themselves as members of the higher classes, and eavesdrop on private conversations, they could break into manors and palaces and commit to memory the content of letters. These talents Hua Yi now offered Xh Han, and the son of the Scarlett Empresses spymaster could find a use for them. Thus the Children of the Night earned the imprimatur of the Cynis family and became untouchable to even the most powerful street gang, and Hua Yi and Xh Han began a close cooperation that eventually led Hua Yi to be introduced to Zheng Zhao who didn't recognize her either.

With her relationship with her former family now on first ground Hua Yi now turned her attention to her auction. The thought occurred to her that a powerful crime boss with a small but loyal army of assassins should perhaps not consent to having her virginity sold by an old crone and her handful of subpar henchmen but Hua Yi didn't really mind it and having spent year studying lovemaking was rather curious about the whole thing so she made no objections to the auction. Much as Xi Yi had expected years of careful teasing had ensured the auction was well attended. In a potent sign of the decadence of the higher classes of the empire in the last years before the disappearence of the Scarlett Empress's the first night with Hua Yi went to fetch a price for which one could have bought a medium sized province in the imperial periphery. The buyer was Zheng Zhao. Hua Yi was shocked and struck by fear that her older brother knew who she was. But though he revealed knowing that the Flower of Yi and the Flower of Death was the same person he didn't seem to associate either with a long since forgotten disappointment of a half sister. Zheng Zhao proceeded to have his way with Hua Yi and against her own will and despite never loosing sight of the fact that this was the man who once came very close to murder her without giving it a second thought Hua Yi quite enjoyed the experience.

The morning after her first-night Hua Yi was greeted by an excited Xi Yi. The old woman had already paid all of her numerous creditors their loans back in full and begun hiring workers to rebuild the "temple". She had also bought a large mansion called the House of Yi. But both Hua Yi and Xi Yi had to wonder if it was the house of Xi Yi or Hua Yi. Though formally a slave of Xi Yi both women realized that for all practical purposes their relationship was no longer that between master and slave and when Xi Yi bought a dozen slave women as priestesses of her new temple Hua Yi demanded that a couple of the Children of the Night who showed every inclination of being good spies but no inclination to be suited for a street gang lifestyle be taken into the temple and taught to be priestess. Slowly but surely Hua Yi eclipsed Xi Yi and sidelined the older woman. While Xi Yi did fight back and the process was not without friction Hua Yi nevertheless respected the old woman and allowed her a comfortable and peaceful retirement. In the meantime Hua Yi's relationship with Zheng Zhao developed. After their night together Zheng Zhao had decided to establish a permanent arrangement with his sister and though she would go on outings with other men and be handsomely compensated for her time, she kept her more intimate favors for her brother whose generous patronage she used to strengthen the Children of the Night and raise their profile in the Cynis family while establishing the temple as the foremost semi-spiritual pleasure house in the world. Time passed and Zheng Zhao, though a cruel and heartless man showed great favor on Hua Yi, ignoring his wives and concubines to spend his time with her. He enjoyed talking to her about their shared criminal affairs and thought it entertaining to treat her as an equal, something he certainly didn't consider her. Sometimes Zheng Zhao would introduce Hua Yi to members of his family and key associated, most notably Xh Han, as Zheng Zhao enjoyed being affectionate with Hua Yi in front of his clearly smitten younger half-brother.

The closeness between Hua Yi and Zheng Zhao did not escape the notice of their father, nor did it please him. One night Wu Wei arrived unbidden at Hua Yi's temple and broke into her bedchamber undetected by all but Hua Yi herself who had not forgotten the lessons of her youth. Wu Wei revealled to Hua Yi that he knew who she was and that he would tolerate no son of his siring offspring with a failure. He attacked Hua Yi and though she fought back as well as she could she could not defeat the Cynis master. Remarked on the beauty of his daughter Wu Wei then proceeded to attempt to rape Hua Yi before he would kill her. This angered Hua Yi rather more than the attack and the attempt to murder her and from some dark recess of her being a strange sensation began to build taking control over her entire being before exploding. A white mist appeared taking the form of a woman looking remarkably like Hua Yi. Shocked Wu Wei called it by Hua Yi's mother's name, remarking that he had killed her long ago. The spirit then attacked Wu Wei and devoured his soul before dissipating. Hua Yi's powers had at last manifested. She was no failure but a dragon blooded exalted as powerful as any ever seen by House Cynis. This was likely Wu Wei's last realization before he was excruciatingly painfully destroyed. A shocked Hua Yi summoned Inu Hua, by then head of the guards of the Temple of Yi and ordered him to dispose in secret of Wu Wei's body.

For several weeks thereafter Hua Yi wondered when Cynis assassins would come and murder her for having killed Wu Wei. She showed no fear at the prospect and made no attempt to escape or to attempt to mobilize defenses knowing it to be futile. None ever came. But as the weeks passed Hua Yi discovered an abundance of hidden talents. Invisibility, "splitting" into multiple bodies, hearing, seeing, summoning animals, and and abundance of talents. With an old magical tome she began to practice some spells and though they either didn't work or didn't work as they where supposed to this clearly owed everything to lack of experience and nothing to an almost painful blossoming of raw magical talents. After several weeks when someone from the House of Cynis came it was the new head of the family; Zheng Zhao. He revealed to Hua Yi that he had found in his missing father's belonging proof of Hua Yi being his half sister. Apparently unperturbed by this fact and not suspecting Hua Yi of their father's death Zheng Zhao proceeded to sleep with Hua Yi. When Hua Yi told him that their father had been wrong to throw her out of the family and she did indeed have powers he then invited her to rejoin the family as his wife. Hua Yi accepted.

She was introduced by Zheng Zhao to the Cynis family as an Exalted but not revealed to be herself a member of the family, and Zheng Zhao promptly married her. He allowed her to practice her newfound talents and procured magic teachers for her while letting her to continue to run at a distance both the Temple of the Yi (with the help of Xi Yi) and the Children of the Night (with the help of Inu Hua). Hua Yi's feelings towards her brother-husband was deeply conflicted. Seeing so much of their father in him and remembering well how he nearly killed her when she was six she hated him. At the same time she found herself irresistibly drawn to him and within a year she was with child. Their child, a son whom Zheng Zhao named Wu Wei to Hua Yi's utter revulsion, was named as Zheng Zhao's heir over his brothers and his children by his senior wives. This shocked the Cynis family. Though the fact that Hua Yi was Exalted had made the family grudgingly accept the marriage the fact that the future head of the Cynis family had a mother who was a former slave and courtesan appalled the Cynis family including Zheng Zhao's only living full brother Kong Xhao. Only the lovestruck Xh Han supported his sister.

Living in her childhood home Hua Yi thus had to contend with the jealousy and hostility of her brothers and sisters, people like her raised to extraordinary cruelty and skilled in manipulations, scheming and murder. Soon the Children of the Night was being attacked by surprisingly powerful gangs and the Temple of Yi was subjected to arson, its priestesses mutilated. Hua Yi responded in kind. With tacit acceptance from Zheng Zhao she had husband's senior wife strangled for allegedly trying to poison Wu Wei and subsequently became Zheng Zhao's first wife. She reached out to Cynis family retainers and allies to target her real and perceived rivals in the Cynis family. When one of her half sister made the mistake to accost Hua Yi, Hua Yi once again summoned her mother's ghost to kill her. None of this was terribly new to the Cynis family. Wu Wei had sired twenty three children who outlived his grueling training and by the time of his death eleven still lived, the majority having died at the hands of their siblings or their siblings agents. After Wu Wei's death this process of murders only accelerated with Zheng Zhao's iron fist the only thing retaining some semblance of order as none dared challenge his position.

Zheng Zhao was as much his father's son as it was possible to be. He possessed boundless cruelty and extraordinary skills of leadership. He was deeply ambitious. Once he had consolidated control of his family and reasserted Cynis control over criminality throughout the empire, tasks he achieved with a characteristic brutality and mass murders of any who would stand in his way he soon set his sights on imperial politics. His father had served the Scarlett Empress as spymaster, a position that had made him one of the most feared men in the empire. Zheng Zhao regarded this position as his natural birthright and asked off his illustrious ancestor to receive it as only a first step towards the greatest heights of imperial politics. But the Scarlett Empress refused him. This incensed Zheng Zhao and almost induced him to open revolt against the Scarlett Empress. But in the end even Zheng Zhao had to realize that that was one opponent too powerful and he had to bear his humiliation. Instead he set about using all of his resources to undermine those of the Scarlett Empresses courtiers and advisors whom he believed unfriendly to himself, most especially the poor soul eventually choose as spy master.

Another object of Zheng Zhao’s hatred was the young House of Vai whose rapid rise to prominence Zheng Zhao regarded as an affront to himself and his family. He convinced an adopted cousin Yang of that family to challenge the house heir to a duel and rejoiced when the affair ended in the Vai heirs death. Later Zheng Zhao sent assassins to murder the head of House Vai and his wives, a similar fate befell the Scarlett Empress's spymaster. In all these and numerous other horrible misdeeds and crimes Hua Yi was her brother-husband an able albeit occasionally reluctant aide. Though Zheng Zhao desired his sister and held her in higher regard than anyone else Hua Yi knew well that a man such as Zheng Zhao could never tolerate even the slightest disobedience. As Zheng Zhao's assassins found their targets a shadow fell upon the imperial capital with prominent courtiers dying left and right. Zheng Zhao publicly railed against the crime spree and declared his willingness to help restore law and order to the empire if he was made spymaster and put in charge of police efforts. The Scarlett Empress relented and gave her ambitious vassal what he wanted, a senior position with broad and largely unchecked powers. The assassinations began to recede, never going away entirely. Zheng Zhao was rewarded richly for the effort and was able to move many of his relations and allies into high positions in the empire.

Yet he showed no gratitude and in his dark heart he nursed ambitions of ever greater power and, eventually, the greatest power. Ever more he began to covet the seat of the Scarlett Empress herself and lament her eternal life. His corruption and decadence and power kept growing unabated and still he wanted more, always more. Then the Scarlett Empress disappeared. Hua Yi, who was one of the few, perhaps the only person, who was able to read with any degree of success Zheng Zhao observed little surprise in her husband's demeanor. As time passed and the Scarlett Empresses absence seemed to become permanent Zheng Zhao began to make moves, first subtly and discreetly but then with increasing confidence and assertiveness towards the absolute power.

As Zheng Zhao's profile rose so to did his principal wife and though few dared openly to scoff at Hua Yi's former profession or lowborn status it nevertheless became something of an embarrassment for the Cynis family and its aspirations. So Zheng Zhao announced to his family and imperial high society that Hua Yi was his long lost half sister. These news shocked the Cynis family, but after Hua Yi revealed information only a child of Wu Wei could know and displayed examples of her training the family accepted the news and Hua Yi was welcomed into the family with the name Lady Wu Zhao. While the stigma of the now Wu Zhao's dubious parentage extirpated another issue presented itself as marriages between siblings was hardly common in the empire and often frowned upon. When Zheng Zhao was reproached by the Cynis family elders for marrying his sister he however laughed at it and said that at least he only married his half sister and that this was better than Xh Han who lusted after his full sibling. So the marriage was grudgingly accepted and Wu Zhao was accepted with various degrees of reluctance by her relatives.

At court and imperial high society acceptance would however prove rather more elusive, and though no one outside the Cynis family was in a position to openly question the increasingly imperious and dangerous Zheng Zhao plenty whispered of the scandalous behavior of the head of the Cynis family. Shameless Zheng Zhao could not care less. He went out of his way to be seen to be affectionate with his favorite wife in front of other imperial notables. He even went about saying that it was a good thing that he had married his half sister as it would keep his bloodline pure and many even prominent people who voiced their displeasure with the match ended up death with Zheng Zhao refusing to deny involvement even as proof of his culpability could not be produced. As the Scarlett Empress's absence grew longer and the prospects of her return began to dim Zheng Zhao's ambition and recklessness grew ever greater. He began to stir up troubles and riots among the lower classes of the imperial capital only to then tell his peers that the chaos required a strong hand, his hand, to guide the empire in the Scarlett Empress's absence. Many pushed back against his ambitions but street gangs who once never dared touch nobles and dragon blooded would attack and plunder their properties and undermine their interests.

Zheng Zhao possessed a deeper understanding of the living condition of the lower classes than most nobles due to his family's close connection with the bottom of society and he was quite charismatic and cunning. He began to present himself as a man of the people called upon to speak for the common people against the interest of the great houses (exempting of course his own great house). Through intimidation, bribery and his personal magnetism he would assemble great crowds of commoners and agitate against the status quo, driving the mobs into a frenzy with his demagoguery, promising the abolition of slavery, work for all, a grain dole and a great many other things and demanding taxes on the wealthy and persecution of various marginalized groups. He would incite mobs, containing legions of his own street gangs that as the Scarlett Empress's absence grew longer increasingly resembled private street armies, to target his enemies real and perceived, only to then turn to his peers and promise them that if he gained power he would crush the mobs, restore order and expand slavery, serfdom and other means of social control over the common folk.

As Zheng Zhao was trying to increase his political fortunes he encountered a small scandal on his Homefront. Not long after Wu Zhao was initiated into the Cynis family Zheng Zhao discovered his two other, much neglected and abused, wives in bed with one another. Though they appeared to have done little beyond holding one another and a lot less than the sexually voracious Zheng Zhao demanded of them on a semi-regular basis, Zheng Zhao chose to regard their action as an act of infidelity and had them dismembered by horses. He then promptly decided to marry three of his sisters, two half sister and a full sister, the last surviving daughters of Wu Wei would thus all be married to Zheng Zhao who considered this appropriate and desirable. He announced his new marriages to the world by insinuating that his bloodline was divine and divinely ordained to rule and that preserving his bloodline by marrying even his full sister was holy and good. Not long thereafter he had his supporters propose that in order to reestablish order in the empire Zheng Zhao should be appointed regent with extraordinary powers to shepherd the empire through its trials until the Scarlett Empress returned.

By this time Wu Zhao had grown very worried about her brother's behavior. She had come to believe that he was an insatiable man who could never be stopped until he either achieved absolute power or was destroyed seeking it. Even if somehow Zheng Zhao was to be named emperor and given absolute rule over the empire he would not be content but would seek to expand the empire and subjugate the whole world to his whim. And Wu Zhao could think of little worse than a world under Zheng Zhao's domination. During her years with her brother their personal relationship had also changed for the worse. Though capable of great affections towards her and clearly quite enamored with her to the point where it could perhaps be said that she was the only person apart from Zheng Zhao whom Zheng Zhao truly cared for, her husband was nevertheless becoming increasingly erratic and abusive. Wu Zhao was also approached with increasing frequency by imperial magnates and powerbrookers who expressed concern about Zheng Zhao's reign of terror. After Zheng Zhao murdered one of his wives (the full sister) Wu Zhao decided it was time to act to ensure that the eventual downfall of her imperious brother-husband not become her downfall as well.

One of the most frequent targets of Zheng Zhao's cruelty was Xh Han. Zheng Zhao in particular enjoyed torturing his younger half brother with the fact that Xh Han was quite obviously deeply in love with Wu Zhao. Zheng Zhao found it deeply satisfying to fan the flames of Xh Han's lust by meticulously detailing his coupling with Wu Zhao while keeping Xh Han close by when he spent time with Wu Zhao. Wu Zhao now seduced her full brother and convinced him that if he killed Zheng Zhao he could have her, leadership of the Cynis family and perhaps great power in the empire. At Wu Zhao's prodding Xh Han assembled a group of nobles dissatisfied with Zheng Zhao and together they assassinated Zheng Zhao. Having slain Zheng Zhao Xh Han rushed to Wu Zhao's chambers and professed his love for her. She responded by having him arrested. In front of the Cynis family elder's Wu Zhao accused Xh Han of murdering the head of the Cynis family and attempting to usurp his son Wu Wei the Younger's inheritance. She then sentenced Xh Han to death by a thousand cuts having the remaining children of Wu Wei the elder kill Xh Han in this fashion. As children of Wu Wei they knew precisely how to cut to cause maximum pain while causing minimal harm and it took a long time and very near a full thousand cuts before Xh Han, a strong man, died from hemorrhaging. As Wu Zhao had counted on Xh Han's love for her ensured that he never revealed her involvement in Zheng Zhao's murder.

WIP.
Starting Equipment: (just need personal effects or important items by your character. Like a family heirloom or what not)

Intimacy Metrics
(Total of 50 points, may only put a maximum of five in each stat at start, can fluctuate throughout RP as events transpire and basically help visualize the personality of your character. Maximum of ten in each stat metric.)
Honor Rating: 2
Relationship Status:
Intelligence: 5
Wit: 5
Academic Knowledge: 5
Sense of Humor: 5
Sociability: 5
Law: (How high your character regards the law and against breaking it) 0
Perception: (seeing through lies, illusion, and surroundings to try and gain the initiative) 5
Compassion: 5
Temperance: 5
Valor: 5

Convictions: (List them)

Exalted Metrics (if applicable)
Primary Focus: (Fire, Wood, Earth, Water, Air)
Secondary Focuses: (May not be picked if you have a primary of Adept level. See Mastery parenthesis for explanation)
Anima: (when you display your power it may manifest around you as a visible aura. Sometimes taking the shape of an animal, being, or totem)
Mastery: (Novice, Initiate, Adept, Learned, Expert, Master, Grandmaster; capped at Adept to start. Note that you may start with one Adeptcy or two initiate or three novice focuses.)
Essence: (How much raw power you have. Start with fifty points)
Motes: (how many times in a day you may use Essence without being drained. Start with five.)

Skills
(Total of 50 points and may start with a maximum of six in each category as initial limit. Categories are stat based unless stated.)
Language: (How quick you can learn foreign languages)
Able to Read: (Yes or No)
Reading Comprehension: (how well your character reads)

Archery:
Ranged: (utilizing other ranged weapons like throwing knives etc)
Riding:
Short Arm Melee: (single and hand and half swords, maces, flails, etc)
Long Arm Melee: (Spears, two hand swords, long axes)
Polearms: (also includes spears and halberds)

Crafting
Basic Repair: (Fixing simple things like cartwheels and your starting equipment)
Advanced Repair: (Advanced machinery)
Magitech: (Able to fix magical machinery)
Artifice: (Creating things)
Metallurgy: (How well you fashion metal)
Engineering: (Catch all of construction and building knowledges. A 1 is like putting a tent and 100 is building Dimensional Gateways)

Magic (For Non-Exalted whom may learn Sorcery though it is considered Low Magic and weaker but able to be mastered by anyone)
Elemental: (list element and stat)
Energy: (Raw pure power)
Animate: (How well you animate machinery)
Necromancy: (How well you animate the dead)
Animalism: (Control of animals)
Shapeshifting: (Temporarily changing your form)
Illusion:
Summoning:

[Parcia]

Hey guys, Im alive, doing well-ish.

Caught the Rona, left me with some nasty after effects, getting seperated for it.

I'll be home by the end of the week, should be back in contact soon after.

Glad to see this is alive.

I miss Vodka.

- Sean.

[Luminesa]

Hey guys, Im alive, doing well-ish.

Caught the Rona, left me with some nasty after effects, getting seperated for it.

I'll be home by the end of the week, should be back in contact soon after.

Glad to see this is alive.

I miss Vodka.

- Sean.

PARCIA!!!

Oh no, I hope you’ll recover alright. Yes we’re quite alive and glad to hear from you.

[Imperialisium]

I was right I won't be done today I am sorry to say, still need a good third of the bio, but here is what I have so far if there are any questions concerns or objections.

NationStates Name: of the Quendi
Basic Info:
Given Name: Numerous, known mostly as the Black Widow
Surname/House: Cynis
House Symbol/Sigil: (if applicable)
Age: 25
Height:
Weight:
Body Build: (Athletic, lanky, gaunt etc)
Eye Color:
Image:
Description:( What cannot be seen in an image or additional noteworthy info)
Sexuality:
Exalted:(Yes or No)
Occupation: (what do you do survive or social status)
Allegiance: (if applicable)
Biography:The person who would one day be known as Hua Yi was born in the year 745 into the great exalted house of Cynis, the daughter of Cynis patriarch Wu Wei and one of his junior wives. Wu Wei was a cruel and ambitious man who had no time for gentler sentiments. A fervent believer in strengthening his bloodline through carefully selective breeding practices he took several wives all for the purposes of producing stronger dragon blooded children. There was no room for love in his heart and when his daughter was born he did not bother to give her a name and referred to her simply by a numeral calling her initially "Second Daughter". From a very early age his children learned to fear him above all else and that their high position as his offspring did not protect them from the world unless they pleased him. And what pleased him was not pleasing to his children. Second Daughter and her siblings where from an early age put trough a grueling training regimen to prepare them for working in the Cynis family business. Wu Wei's children was taught the conventional lessons of high level aristocrats and expected to excel at them, but the true emphasis of their education was violence, subterfuge, espionage and criminality. From a young age Wu Wei forbade his servants giving his children food teaching his children that if they wanted to eat they would have to steal from the kitchen. The servants, which was punished harshly for missing food, would beat the children for stealing and in this manner Wu Wei's children had to learn quickly to become excellent thieves or they would starve. Wu Wei also taught his children to fight by pitting them against each other in fights with or without weapons. These fights never ended while both children was still able to stand but continued until one or both was completely defeated. They taught three lessons Wu Wei considered important, endurance, strength and not to love ones siblings. The winners would be allowed to get some food and to rob the personal possessions of the looser. The looser was brutally punished. As his children grew older Wu Wei would gradually increase the intensity and cruelty of their training. He would feed his children poisons that burned like fire in their veins observing their face for any expression of discomfort and withholding antidotes if he thought he observed any. He would send his children to fight with his strongest soldiers and deadliest assassins for hours and hours every day. The most important lesson Wu Wei wanted to impart on his children was however cruelty, as he considered it the basis for anything else. He was determined to wipe out any sentiment and compassion from his children. He went about this in many and ingenious ways. For example when Second Daughter turned six he gave her a puppy for her birthday. For six months Second Daughter busied herself constantly trying not simply to stay alive but also to keep her pup fed and living, no easy feat in Wu Wei's household. Then one day Wu Wei ordered her to strangle her puppy. When she refused Wu Wei summoned his eldest son, seventeen year old Zheng Zhao, and made him use his sister as his punching back for boxing practice. Wu Wei, who had a doctors ability to tell what the human body could endure, allowed a unperturbed Zheng Zhao to beat his six year old sister to within an inch of her life before calling him off. The next day he arrived with Zheng Zhao at Second Daughters sick bed and again demanded that she strangle her dog. Realizing that refusal would mean death the crippled Second Daughter strangled her puppy. In her weakened state it took some time and was not easy. Wu Wei then padded his daughter gently on the head, the first, and only, time he showed her any affection. He then punished her for her initial refusal by forbidding her to speak or be spoken to be anyone for a year.

In this climate of abuse the Cynis children either learned ruthlessness and grew tough or they didn't. First daughter didn't. When Second Daughter was nine her half sister First Daughter took her own life, possibly after an incident involving a disembowled kitten. This made Wu Wei so angry that he had First Daughters mother put to death and First Daughters corpse dumped in a river without ceremony or commemoration. Wu Wei then "promoted" Second Daughter to First Daughter though this would confer no obvious advantage on the new First Daughter which didn't stop Wu Wei from implying to his younger daughters that overtaking First Daughter would be advantageous for them. They tried but none ever succeeded. By the time she turned twelve First Daughter had become a master of the Cynis art. She could move silently everywhere in her father's house avoiding detection by even her own siblings. Stealing food had long since become an easy feat for her and if by some miracle a servant would actually chance upon her they dared not try to reclaim the food from her. She could not be snuck up upon by even her elder siblings and she was a master in disguise and concealment. She knew every tool or weapon, from knives to poisons to ropes, in the Cynis tool kit. She could memorize vast amount of information and could open letters in such a way that made them appear unopened. She could lie effortlessly and believably and could both endure and inflict immense pain. She had killed three people, a slave girl that made the mistake of moving during a knife throwing exercise when First Daughter was seven, another slave during an extended anatomy lecture when she was nine and a street urchin who First Daughter killed in combat when she was eleven because Wu Wei ordered it. Yet despite all her talents First Daughter had a very serious problem. She showed no sign of her exalted powers manifesting.

Wu Wei's breeding program for his own family had left his children with many extraordinary and mystical powers many of which showed from quite a young age. Most of his children had a much keener sight then ordinary people and possessed extreme physical dexterity and strength. Many had an extremely acute hearing to rival that of Cynis watch dogs. Abilities such as invisibility, changing ones physical appearance, communicating with animals, walking on water, shapeshifting, flight, to "split" into multiple bodies, put people to sleep with by staring into the eyes and various other and sometimes even more extraordinary gifts abounded among Wu Wei's brood. Exempting her great physical strength, which many have owed more to her training than any mystical power, and a slightly keener eyesight and hearing First Daughter displayed no such gifts at the advanced age of twelve and for this reason Wu Wei did not believe she would ever manifest any powers. This was the most unforgivable transgression First Daughter could have been found guilty of in her father's eyes safe perhaps from suicide. After her first period came and went without her being able to display any powers Wu Wei determined her a failure and a freak of nature. He sold her to a brothel. He took the time to personally inform her of her future, remarking that she was worthless and that the only reason she didn't become dog food was because she was pretty. Then he discarded her like a piece of thrash.

A shocked First Daughter was bought by a half crazed old madam by the name of Xi Yu who fancied herself a priestess of some fertility cult. Her "temple" as she insisted on calling her establishment was associated but not directly owned by the Cynis family and while once a very prestigious brothel catering to the highest clientele it had fallen on hard time. Xi Yu, was however a crafty plier of her trade. She believed that the pretty twelve year old she had bought would become a great beauty in time and fetch a handsome price. In time she would be proven right. The banishment from her father's house, the only home she had ever known the former First Daughter was in shock, bordering on the catatonic. Xi Yi, worried that she may have perhaps made a bad investment, beat her new slave hard to wake her up frothier catatonia. This did not much phase the slave, who after all was accustomed to far more severe beatings and barely noticed the efforts of a gasping and exhausted Xi Yi. After some time the slave escaped the "temple" which had no security that could deter her and ran home. She had no trouble finding home and even overcame the much more significant security of the Cynis manor and enter her home. But there her brother Zheng Zhao found her. He beat her, far more potently than Xi Yi ever could and returned her to the "temple" where the madam proceeded to beat her slave again, exhausting herself far more than hurting the slave. For the next month this ritual would repeat itself frequently. The slave would with great ease escape Xi Yi and run home, breaking in and then be caught, beaten harshly, returned to Xi Yi and beaten lightly. It only came to a halt when Wu Wei threatened to kill her if she ever returned again. The slave then returned to Xi Yi. She could have easily killed the old woman and her servants and guards, or simply escaped them. But she had no particular objection to them (the slave had yet to realize that Xi Yi's beatings was supposed to be harmful to her) and when she couldn't return home she might as well live in the "temple". Once the slave stopped trying to escape and seemed, at least in part, willing to submit to her Xi Yi became convinced that she had made a good investment, She believed the twelve year old had the makings of a great beauty and would one day raise Xi Yi's "temple" to its former glory. Xi Yi thus gave her slave the name Hua Yi, the Flower of the House of Yi and set about teaching her not how to become a common whore but to become a great courtesan and fertility priestess at the "temple". Hua Yi was happy enough to learn from Xi Yi. In some respects Xi Yi's teachings even bore a resemblance to Wu Wei's. A great thief and a courtesan both possess an elegance of movement and a spy and a courtesan are both able to conceal their feelings behind a perfect mask and appear to any person as they wish. Both trades required a healthy and fit body though only one required muscles. Other things taught by Xi Yi was quite different than Wu Wei's lessons but not generally hard and Hua Yi had nothing better to do than learn.

Despite her willingness to stay with Xi Yi Hua Yi was however quite bored. During her life with Wu Wei every minute of the day had been dedicated to survival and every moments sleep a much needed and precious respite from a harsh life. While Xi Yi demanded excellence and imposed a vigorous training regimen and frequent canings (Xi Yi had eventually grown tired of beatings that appeared to exhaust her much more than hurt her slave, and had introduced a cane to inflict greater pain with less effort on her part, Hua Yi had, mostly out of embarrassment for her mistresses, taken to effect being genuinely hurt by the old woman's cane) Hua Yi's new life nevertheless left her plenty of free time and unspent energy, an entirely new experience. At night she would therefore often break out of the "temple" and roam the streets of the capital city. She stole food from vendors emptied the purses of various wealthy citizens not out of any need but mostly to stave of boredom. This attracted the attention of small crime gang of street urchins led by sixteen year old twin brothers Shu and Hu. Shu and Hu earned a living by terrorizing street urchins and pickpockets in a pair of city blocks they considered their territory. They accosted Hua Yi and demanded that she leave their neighborhood. They then made the mistake to get physical with her, wanting to teach her a lesson. Shu broke two arms and a leg. Hu lost an eye. Hua Yi did not think much of the affair. She was utterly unmoved by the extreme violence she had used against the pair and if she thought of the incident at all it was in wonder at the ineptitude of two much older boys at fighting. Hua Yi had never fought anyone not her sibling, her father, or a Cynis employee and by that comparison Shu and Hu seemed almost comically inept. Hua Yi kept roaming the streets at night and stole what she wanted. Though trained to be observant and perceptive she cared little for the upheavals that followed the collapse of the Shu-Hu gang and when a couple of weeks later she was attacked by five young men she didn't link this to an attempt by another gang to assert control over the Shu-Hu territory and she never bothered to ask any of the five young men why they attacked her after she had beaten them, even though at least two was still able to speak after the fight. Feeling refreshed by the incident, though still confounded by the utter incompetence of the fighters she faced, Hua Yi just kept running around the city at night doing as she pleased. She did however notice that street urchins that had used to look upon her with anger now began to run away from her or show deference but thought little of it. She had concluded that the world outside the Cynis family was a strange and incomprehensible place of weaklings.

One day Hua Yi noticed a slightly younger boy following her. The street urchin appeared to do a very poor job of hiding his pursuit and when Hua Yi decided to loose him she easily managed it. But a couple of days later he was again running after her. At first she did not much care, but eventually she grew slightly annoyed. Then she began to wonder if the boy was some sort of supremely incompetent spy or assassin. He didn't look it. A scrawny, filthy whelp with a constantly running nose, a starved look about him and a sickly disposition and clinging to some sort of stuffed animal that was even more filthy than he was, Hua Yi had seen him being pushed around by other street urchins. Still better safe than sorry Hua Yi decided she might as well kill him. She accosted him and easily overwhelmed him as he put up no defense whatsoever. She almost killed him instantly but perhaps because she worried about getting his smell on her if she killed him or simply because she was bored she decided to talk to him a bit first demanding to hear why he followed her.

The street urchins, through much terrified sobbing, explained that he was afraid of the street gangs who wanted to gauge his eyes out and use him as a beggar and that he was following Hua Yi so they wouldn't dare touch him. Annoyed by the sobs Hua Yi slapped the street urchins a bit but then thought better of it because of his smell. Her interest piqued just enough to restrain her lethal impulses she inquired why the street gangs wouldn't dare to hurt the boy if he was following Hua Yi. The street urchin then gave a very inflated account of Hua Yi's defeat of the street gangs in which she was depicted as an almost godlike figure. Hua Yi, who had never heard a kind word about herself was quite pleased by the account. She decided to let the street urchins live. "I suppose I could look after you." She remarked magnanimously. Hua Yi then decided to make the boy her slave. She asked his name, but then changed her mind. "I shall call you Inu Hua, Hua Yi's dog." She declared. She then determined that she didn't want a filthy dog. She took Inu Hua to a river and demanded he go out into it and clean up. He refused, scared of the water. Hua Yi wondered if perhaps it had not been wiser to kill the street urchin. But out of pride more than anything else she determined not to change her mind. She beat her dog a bit but though she hadn't thought she beat him hard he wailed and seemed genuinely hurt. She allowed him to recover a bit and then she pulled him out into the river and dragged him through it until the worst of his stench had abated. Then she took him to the slave market and stole some chains which, after much whimpering and struggling she managed to put on her dog. Having once seen a wealthy boy play a game involving the throwing and fetching of a stick with his dog in a park Hua Yi decided to teach Inu Hua this game, though she soon grew bored with the slow pace with which the dog could retrieve her sticks. So instead she fetched him some food and was for the first time pleased with her dog as the food elicited the kind of adoration in his eyes that a master should expect from their dog.

They then talked a bit. From his conversation Hua Yi soon concluded that her dog was both stupid and uneducated. She wondered, based on her limited interactions with Shu and Hu and the five young men she had bested if this was common to ordinary folk. Both Wu Wei and especially Xi Yi's servants also seemed rather unimpressive intellectually. Her dog told Hua Yi about his fear of having his eyes gauged out. The dog's older half brother had had another brother of the dog gelded and blinded because it made him a better singer and beggar and allowed the eldest brother to afford buying wine and women and now the dog feared that the same would soon be done to him, or that he would, like his sisters be sold to bad men. The dog seemed surprisingly perturbed by this, in Hua Yi's mind, perfectly normal familial behavior. The only parts of the story she could not make sense of was why this older brother was so scared of her and why he spent his money so frivolously. Beginning to feel tired Hua Yi decided to return home to get some sleep before she had to get up and follow Xi Yi's lessons. The dog however began to cry when she expressed a desire to leave saying that he was afraid of his brother if she left him. Annoyed by this excessive reaction to the brother's perfectly reasonable desire to earn some money from his sibling Hua Yi considered once again to kill her dog but again she decided against it. To calm the dog down she beat him a bit, to her frustration this however only increased the extremity of his emotional reaction. Desperate she promised him that she would deal with his brother and not allow him to take his eyes. After all, Hua Yi thought, if playing with the stick had been an uninspired game when the dog had his eyes it probably wouldn't be more fun if he didn't. After her beating the dog could not walk an a frustrated Hua Yi stole a blanket and had him dragged under a bridge to put him to bed. She promised she would return for him the next night and warned him that if he wasn't clean he would be punished.

After leaving her dog under the bridge Hua Yi went out to find a street urchin. They fled from her, but this was no problem and she quickly caught one demanding to know where her dog's brother lived. After some beatings the street urchin directed her to another street urchin until she found the dog's brothers house. She then broke into it and slit the dog's older brother and another young man's throat (she wasn't sure which was the dog's brother so she decided to take both). Then she went home to Xi Yi's "temple" and went to bed, dreaming sweet dreams.

The next day Hua Yi was rather absent minded at her lessons with Xi Yi. Xi Yi had determined that Hua Yi should learn music, singing, painting, poetry, theater, calligraphy and every other art known to man as well as the more mystical arts of love and fertility rituals that Xi Yi always alluded to but had not yet introduced Hua Yi to. Though a capable student who, from her time with Wu Wei, was excellent at learning to imitate perfectly new skills, that day Hua Yi's absentmindedness resulted in several canings. When night finally came she broke out of Xi Yi's house and went to look for her dog under the bridge. When she found him where she had left him, having stayed the whole day under the bridge to nurse his wound she observed that though he appeared to have made an attempt to keep himself clean he still smelled. So she beat him. But she tried to beat him as Xi Yi beat her not as Wu Wei did and she was quite pleased when he didn't respond with excessive wailing but accepted in silence his beating. "Good dog." She said.

So passed the next couple of years of Hua Yi's life. During the day she was an attendant and capable student of everything Xi Yi wanted her to learn. She was taught how to always be pleasing, how to read people to learn their deepest desire (a talent that required much the same skills as telling whether a person lied), how to play musical instruments and sing, how to comb her hair, wash her body, apply cosmetics and eventually also a theoretical introduction to the mystical art of love and the rituals of Xi Yi's fertility cult. At night she would run around the city with her dog and eventually assemble a small gathering of weak and poor street urchins who preferred to be abused by Hua Yi to chance things with the street gangs. Playing with her dog and this growing retinue of servants Hua Yi's personality underwent a subtle change. Though she frequently beat her charges she always did so in the Xi Yi manner never the Wu Wei one and though she demanded they serve her in all things she also looked after them and reacted with great fury when the street gangs harassed them. Once when a pretty girl in Hua Yi's entourage was stolen by a gang the gang leader and his entire household died suddenly, apparently from having eaten rotten fish while the gang leader himself washed up on the side of the river a couple of days later, the same day the man who had bought the girl inexplicably decided to walk of a balcony six stores above street level. The girl was returned to Hua Yi, who beat her softly for having been taken. Another time a relative of the man Hua Yi had murdered alongside her dog's brother died when one of his warehouses burned down with him and a bunch of his friends inside it. It was never established why they had not walked out of the building when it caught fire. Little by little Hua Yi became the leader of her own, much feared, street gang as she taught her street urchins how to steal and won a territory in which no other street gang was in a hurry too encroach. The things her street urchins stole she had little use of and she often threw them away, though she never suffered the urchins to keep anything from her. She became know as the Night Stalker or the Flower of Death. As time passed Hua Yi began to become acutely aware of the differences in social classes in the imperial capital. The circumstances of her street urchins seemed to be remarkably inferior to her own and her own inferior to that of more wealthy citizens. It puzzled Hua Yi. In Wu Wei's house she had often gone hungry, she had slept on the floor with the animals, she had rarely washed herself and never with soap or water that wasn't freezing. Yet at the same time she had been surrounded by enormous wealth, she had learned to read and write perfectly in several languages, she had learned philosophy, history, science and math and magic and all such things. She had been both rich and privileged and the opposite. Now she was only the opposite, for though Xi Yi's "temple" was a different world from the mostly homeless and always poor street urchins it was clear to Hua Yi that the relative wealth there was not hers and she was only a slave who would need to please Xi Yi to retain her relative comfort. Hua Yi also began to learn something else that surprised her. Though some of Hua Yi's street urchins had a family background quite similar to her or her dogs most didn't. Most spoke of drunken and unemployed parents who often beat them (in the Xi Yi, not Wu Wei manner if their bruises and absence of broken bones was any indication) but there was few mentions of eye gauging, gelding or sales. This confounded Hua Yi and yet her street urchins would point out to her clean children in nice clothes who lead an even more different life. Hua Yi would follow such children and break into their houses and in these modest hovels, so far removed from the palatial setting of the Cynis manor she would see the most remarkably things. Children being kissed and hugged by their parents, being given food without having to fight for it, showing affection towards siblings, having pets. It shocked Hua Yi, and it lit a fire inside of her. Angry Hua Yi, perceptive as ever, became acutely aware of the fact that a small group of people in the capital seemed to live in great wealth and have good and happy lives while the great majority was a poor and abused underclass. It angered her greatly and one day when a highborn noble reproached Hua Yi and her street urchins from playing in a private park she followed him and strangled him once out of sight of her street urchins. She then went to her dog. He was sick and Hua Yi, having learned plenty of medicine and healing from her father observed that scabs on his neck where the manacles she had put on him had cut him showed sign of metallic poisoning from the shackles. She took them of him and then nursed him back to health. "Dog!" She said. "You are no longer my slave. You are my fri ... My ... My servant." She declared. Thereafter she became kinder towards all her street urchins. She took to calling them her children, though few were much younger than her and a few a little older. She no longer made her "children" steal at great difficulty trinkets that she then simply threw away. Instead she taught them to read and write and fed them by charging protection money from local vendors who did not wish to anger the Flower of Death and began to care for them. She did not stop beating them for disobedience and she continued to demand loyalty but she no longer displayed cruelty towards them.

As this transformation of Hua Yi's temperament occurred she also underwent a physical transformation. No longer a scrawny half savage, though erudite, assassins apprentice Hua Yi had as Xi Yi always hoped blossomed to become a rare beauty and she had learned everything Xi Yi had taught her about elegance and grace, art and beauty and above all seduction and love. Xi Yi took to pay minstrels to compose songs about the beauty of the Flower of Yi, whose face put all flowers to shame, whose beauty was so enchanting that fish would seize to swim or birds fall from the sky upon seeing it, whose luminous countenance made the moon she away in embarrassment. Such songs was of course exaggerated but they contained no small amount of truth as attested to by the fact that they became quite popular and that the minstrels seemed to have no trouble coming up with this (and no desire to charge Xi Yi much money for them). Xi Yi began to take Hua Yi, dressed in fine silks and jewelry on various social outings introducing her to high society and Hua Yi, possessing every social grace and managing to tread the very fine line between innocence and flirtatiousness became quite a sensation. Already when Hua Yi was fourteen Xi Yi had received generous offers from men interesting in spending the first night with Hua Yi. By the time she was fifteen her virginity was priced much higher than the price Xi Yi had payed Wu Wei. Yet Xi Yi waited, teasing the market with Hua Yi's various social appearances and by more songs about the Flower of Yi. Xi Yi determined that when Hua Yi was seventeen she would hold an auction. Until then the crafty madam began taking great loans from moneylenders to begin the restoration of her "temple". Using Hua Yi's Virginia as collateral Xi Yi had no trouble obtaining such loans.

None of this was known to Hua Yi's "children". When she was among them she dressed exclusively in a semi-militarized uniform of black leather and changed her appearance to that of a gang member. Only Inu Hua knew that the stern and brutal dark robed mistress of the slums and shanty towns of the imperial capital was the same person as the beautiful flower in colorful silk attending high society events. Hua Yi's "children", known now as "the Children of the Night" had become a fearful street gang. Having taught her children to read and write Hua Yi then proceeded to teach them the lessons of her childhood with Wu Wei (though with less brutality). While her children could not learn the more extraordinary skills that Hua Yi herself had been sold for failing to exhibit, teaching them how to fight, how to move unseen, how to spy, how to steal; this was no trouble at all, and as Hua Yi's virginity auction approached the Flower of Death's Night Children had become a fearsome street gang. Taking in young street urchins and giving them a home where strict discipline and harsh treatments co-existed with community and companionship the Children of the Night began to resemble less a street gang and more of a war band. By no particular effort of Hua Yi's she was approached first by ordinary street vendors, later by tradesmen and eventually by wealthy merchants and industrialists who with no prodding offered her jade and favors for her forbearance. This eventually was followed by visits from leaders of other street gangs who offered the best part of their business and sought the "advice" of their "esteemed older sister". This was hardly surprising, hardly a single fully initiated member of the Children of the Night was now unable to take on a Shu and Hu simultaneously and win, and no one ever talked of geldings, gauging or selling them. Yet eventually this rise of the Children of the Night would draw the attention of the Cynis family.

Wu Wei, the empresses spy master and supreme crime lord of the empire could not of course be bothered by some upstart street gang but his favorite son Zheng Zhao, crime lord of the capital, could at least be bothered to delegate to his younger half brother, Hua YI's full brother, Xh Han, to put pressure on the Children of the Night. As she was approached by Xh Han, who did not recognize his sister, Hua Yi thought first to kill them as retaliation for her family's past abuses, but she restrained herself. Instead she decided to work with the Cynis family. The Cynis family had plenty of gang soldiers, brutish creatures that could be relied upon to kill, rob or destroy people or things. But the Children of the Night had different and more sophisticated talents. Observant, stealthy and literate the Children of the Night had long since seized stealing things, after all they received tributes that easily payed their way, and had instead taken to steal secrets. They would sneak up upon prominent people, having learned to disguise themselves as members of the higher classes, and eavesdrop on private conversations, they could break into manors and palaces and commit to memory the content of letters. These talents Hua Yi now offered Xh Han, and the son of the Scarlett Empresses spymaster could find a use for them. Thus the Children of the Night earned the imprimatur of the Cynis family and became untouchable to even the most powerful street gang, and Hua Yi and Xh Han began a close cooperation that eventually led Hua Yi to be introduced to Zheng Zhao who didn't recognize her either.

With her relationship with her former family now on first ground Hua Yi now turned her attention to her auction. The thought occurred to her that a powerful crime boss with a small but loyal army of assassins should perhaps not consent to having her virginity sold by an old crone and her handful of subpar henchmen but Hua Yi didn't really mind it and having spent year studying lovemaking was rather curious about the whole thing so she made no objections to the auction. Much as Xi Yi had expected years of careful teasing had ensured the auction was well attended. In a potent sign of the decadence of the higher classes of the empire in the last years before the disappearence of the Scarlett Empress's the first night with Hua Yi went to fetch a price for which one could have bought a medium sized province in the imperial periphery. The buyer was Zheng Zhao. Hua Yi was shocked and struck by fear that her older brother knew who she was. But though he revealed knowing that the Flower of Yi and the Flower of Death was the same person he didn't seem to associate either with a long since forgotten disappointment of a half sister. Zheng Zhao proceeded to have his way with Hua Yi and against her own will and despite never loosing sight of the fact that this was the man who once came very close to murder her without giving it a second thought Hua Yi quite enjoyed the experience.

The morning after her first-night Hua Yi was greeted by an excited Xi Yi. The old woman had already paid all of her numerous creditors their loans back in full and begun hiring workers to rebuild the "temple". She had also bought a large mansion called the House of Yi. But both Hua Yi and Xi Yi had to wonder if it was the house of Xi Yi or Hua Yi. Though formally a slave of Xi Yi both women realized that for all practical purposes their relationship was no longer that between master and slave and when Xi Yi bought a dozen slave women as priestesses of her new temple Hua Yi demanded that a couple of the Children of the Night who showed every inclination of being good spies but no inclination to be suited for a street gang lifestyle be taken into the temple and taught to be priestess. Slowly but surely Hua Yi eclipsed Xi Yi and sidelined the older woman. While Xi Yi did fight back and the process was not without friction Hua Yi nevertheless respected the old woman and allowed her a comfortable and peaceful retirement. In the meantime Hua Yi's relationship with Zheng Zhao developed. After their night together Zheng Zhao had decided to establish a permanent arrangement with his sister and though she would go on outings with other men and be handsomely compensated for her time, she kept her more intimate favors for her brother whose generous patronage she used to strengthen the Children of the Night and raise their profile in the Cynis family while establishing the temple as the foremost semi-spiritual pleasure house in the world. Time passed and Zheng Zhao, though a cruel and heartless man showed great favor on Hua Yi, ignoring his wives and concubines to spend his time with her. He enjoyed talking to her about their shared criminal affairs and thought it entertaining to treat her as an equal, something he certainly didn't consider her. Sometimes Zheng Zhao would introduce Hua Yi to members of his family and key associated, most notably Xh Han, as Zheng Zhao enjoyed being affectionate with Hua Yi in front of his clearly smitten younger half-brother.

The closeness between Hua Yi and Zheng Zhao did not escape the notice of their father, nor did it please him. One night Wu Wei arrived unbidden at Hua Yi's temple and broke into her bedchamber undetected by all but Hua Yi herself who had not forgotten the lessons of her youth. Wu Wei revealled to Hua Yi that he knew who she was and that he would tolerate no son of his siring offspring with a failure. He attacked Hua Yi and though she fought back as well as she could she could not defeat the Cynis master. Remarked on the beauty of his daughter Wu Wei then proceeded to attempt to rape Hua Yi before he would kill her. This angered Hua Yi rather more than the attack and the attempt to murder her and from some dark recess of her being a strange sensation began to build taking control over her entire being before exploding. A white mist appeared taking the form of a woman looking remarkably like Hua Yi. Shocked Wu Wei called it by Hua Yi's mother's name, remarking that he had killed her long ago. The spirit then attacked Wu Wei and devoured his soul before dissipating. Hua Yi's powers had at last manifested. She was no failure but a dragon blooded exalted as powerful as any ever seen by House Cynis. This was likely Wu Wei's last realization before he was excruciatingly painfully destroyed. A shocked Hua Yi summoned Inu Hua, by then head of the guards of the Temple of Yi and ordered him to dispose in secret of Wu Wei's body.

For several weeks thereafter Hua Yi wondered when Cynis assassins would come and murder her for having killed Wu Wei. She showed no fear at the prospect and made no attempt to escape or to attempt to mobilize defenses knowing it to be futile. None ever came. But as the weeks passed Hua Yi discovered an abundance of hidden talents. Invisibility, "splitting" into multiple bodies, hearing, seeing, summoning animals, and and abundance of talents. With an old magical tome she began to practice some spells and though they either didn't work or didn't work as they where supposed to this clearly owed everything to lack of experience and nothing to an almost painful blossoming of raw magical talents. After several weeks when someone from the House of Cynis came it was the new head of the family; Zheng Zhao. He revealed to Hua Yi that he had found in his missing father's belonging proof of Hua Yi being his half sister. Apparently unperturbed by this fact and not suspecting Hua Yi of their father's death Zheng Zhao proceeded to sleep with Hua Yi. When Hua Yi told him that their father had been wrong to throw her out of the family and she did indeed have powers he then invited her to rejoin the family as his wife. Hua Yi accepted.

She was introduced by Zheng Zhao to the Cynis family as an Exalted but not revealed to be herself a member of the family, and Zheng Zhao promptly married her. He allowed her to practice her newfound talents and procured magic teachers for her while letting her to continue to run at a distance both the Temple of the Yi (with the help of Xi Yi) and the Children of the Night (with the help of Inu Hua). Hua Yi's feelings towards her brother-husband was deeply conflicted. Seeing so much of their father in him and remembering well how he nearly killed her when she was six she hated him. At the same time she found herself irresistibly drawn to him and within a year she was with child. Their child, a son whom Zheng Zhao named Wu Wei to Hua Yi's utter revulsion, was named as Zheng Zhao's heir over his brothers and his children by his senior wives. This shocked the Cynis family. Though the fact that Hua Yi was Exalted had made the family grudgingly accept the marriage the fact that the future head of the Cynis family had a mother who was a former slave and courtesan appalled the Cynis family including Zheng Zhao's only living full brother Kong Xhao. Only the lovestruck Xh Han supported his sister.

Living in her childhood home Hua Yi thus had to contend with the jealousy and hostility of her brothers and sisters, people like her raised to extraordinary cruelty and skilled in manipulations, scheming and murder. Soon the Children of the Night was being attacked by surprisingly powerful gangs and the Temple of Yi was subjected to arson, its priestesses mutilated. Hua Yi responded in kind. With tacit acceptance from Zheng Zhao she had husband's senior wife strangled for allegedly trying to poison Wu Wei and subsequently became Zheng Zhao's first wife. She reached out to Cynis family retainers and allies to target her real and perceived rivals in the Cynis family. When one of her half sister made the mistake to accost Hua Yi, Hua Yi once again summoned her mother's ghost to kill her. None of this was terribly new to the Cynis family. Wu Wei had sired twenty three children who outlived his grueling training and by the time of his death eleven still lived, the majority having died at the hands of their siblings or their siblings agents. After Wu Wei's death this process of murders only accelerated with Zheng Zhao's iron fist the only thing retaining some semblance of order as none dared challenge his position.

Zheng Zhao was as much his father's son as it was possible to be. He possessed boundless cruelty and extraordinary skills of leadership. He was deeply ambitious. Once he had consolidated control of his family and reasserted Cynis control over criminality throughout the empire, tasks he achieved with a characteristic brutality and mass murders of any who would stand in his way he soon set his sights on imperial politics. His father had served the Scarlett Empress as spymaster, a position that had made him one of the most feared men in the empire. Zheng Zhao regarded this position as his natural birthright and asked off his illustrious ancestor to receive it as only a first step towards the greatest heights of imperial politics. But the Scarlett Empress refused him. This incensed Zheng Zhao and almost induced him to open revolt against the Scarlett Empress. But in the end even Zheng Zhao had to realize that that was one opponent too powerful and he had to bear his humiliation. Instead he set about using all of his resources to undermine those of the Scarlett Empresses courtiers and advisors whom he believed unfriendly to himself, most especially the poor soul eventually choose as spy master.

Another object of Zheng Zhao’s hatred was the young House of Vai whose rapid rise to prominence Zheng Zhao regarded as an affront to himself and his family. He convinced an adopted cousin Yang of that family to challenge the house heir to a duel and rejoiced when the affair ended in the Vai heirs death. Later Zheng Zhao sent assassins to murder the head of House Vai and his wives, a similar fate befell the Scarlett Empress's spymaster. In all these and numerous other horrible misdeeds and crimes Hua Yi was her brother-husband an able albeit occasionally reluctant aide. Though Zheng Zhao desired his sister and held her in higher regard than anyone else Hua Yi knew well that a man such as Zheng Zhao could never tolerate even the slightest disobedience. As Zheng Zhao's assassins found their targets a shadow fell upon the imperial capital with prominent courtiers dying left and right. Zheng Zhao publicly railed against the crime spree and declared his willingness to help restore law and order to the empire if he was made spymaster and put in charge of police efforts. The Scarlett Empress relented and gave her ambitious vassal what he wanted, a senior position with broad and largely unchecked powers. The assassinations began to recede, never going away entirely. Zheng Zhao was rewarded richly for the effort and was able to move many of his relations and allies into high positions in the empire.

Yet he showed no gratitude and in his dark heart he nursed ambitions of ever greater power and, eventually, the greatest power. Ever more he began to covet the seat of the Scarlett Empress herself and lament her eternal life. His corruption and decadence and power kept growing unabated and still he wanted more, always more. Then the Scarlett Empress disappeared. Hua Yi, who was one of the few, perhaps the only person, who was able to read with any degree of success Zheng Zhao observed little surprise in her husband's demeanor. As time passed and the Scarlett Empresses absence seemed to become permanent Zheng Zhao began to make moves, first subtly and discreetly but then with increasing confidence and assertiveness towards the absolute power.

WIP.
Starting Equipment: (just need personal effects or important items by your character. Like a family heirloom or what not)

Intimacy Metrics
(Total of 50 points, may only put a maximum of five in each stat at start, can fluctuate throughout RP as events transpire and basically help visualize the personality of your character. Maximum of ten in each stat metric.)
Honor Rating: 2
Relationship Status:
Intelligence: 5
Wit: 5
Academic Knowledge: 5
Sense of Humor: 5
Sociability: 5
Law: (How high your character regards the law and against breaking it) 0
Perception: (seeing through lies, illusion, and surroundings to try and gain the initiative) 5
Compassion: 5
Temperance: 5
Valor: 5

Convictions: (List them)

Exalted Metrics (if applicable)
Primary Focus: (Fire, Wood, Earth, Water, Air)
Secondary Focuses: (May not be picked if you have a primary of Adept level. See Mastery parenthesis for explanation)
Anima: (when you display your power it may manifest around you as a visible aura. Sometimes taking the shape of an animal, being, or totem)
Mastery: (Novice, Initiate, Adept, Learned, Expert, Master, Grandmaster; capped at Adept to start. Note that you may start with one Adeptcy or two initiate or three novice focuses.)
Essence: (How much raw power you have. Start with fifty points)
Motes: (how many times in a day you may use Essence without being drained. Start with five.)

Skills
(Total of 50 points and may start with a maximum of six in each category as initial limit. Categories are stat based unless stated.)
Language: (How quick you can learn foreign languages)
Able to Read: (Yes or No)
Reading Comprehension: (how well your character reads)

Archery:
Ranged: (utilizing other ranged weapons like throwing knives etc)
Riding:
Short Arm Melee: (single and hand and half swords, maces, flails, etc)
Long Arm Melee: (Spears, two hand swords, long axes)
Polearms: (also includes spears and halberds)

Crafting
Basic Repair: (Fixing simple things like cartwheels and your starting equipment)
Advanced Repair: (Advanced machinery)
Magitech: (Able to fix magical machinery)
Artifice: (Creating things)
Metallurgy: (How well you fashion metal)
Engineering: (Catch all of construction and building knowledges. A 1 is like putting a tent and 100 is building Dimensional Gateways)

Magic (For Non-Exalted whom may learn Sorcery though it is considered Low Magic and weaker but able to be mastered by anyone)
Elemental: (list element and stat)
Energy: (Raw pure power)
Animate: (How well you animate machinery)
Necromancy: (How well you animate the dead)
Animalism: (Control of animals)
Shapeshifting: (Temporarily changing your form)
Illusion:
Summoning:

It looks good so far. I wonder how the Heads of House Cynis would think of Zhang Zhao and Hua Yi.

[Of the Quendi]

It looks good so far. I wonder how the Heads of House Cynis would think of Zhang Zhao and Hua Yi.

Well Zheng Zhao is the head of House Cynis, and before my endless saga is done Hua Yi will be.

[Imperialisium]

It looks good so far. I wonder how the Heads of House Cynis would think of Zhang Zhao and Hua Yi.

Well Zheng Zhao is the head of House Cynis, and before my endless saga is done Hua Yi will be.

No he’s not. He’d have to murder the three matriarchs of House Cynis to officially be the head of the house.

[Parcia]

Hey guys, Im alive, doing well-ish.

Caught the Rona, left me with some nasty after effects, getting seperated for it.

I'll be home by the end of the week, should be back in contact soon after.

Glad to see this is alive.

I miss Vodka.

- Sean.

PARCIA!!!

Oh no, I hope you’ll recover alright. Yes we’re quite alive and glad to hear from you.

Thanks Lumi, Im using the pay-for-time kiosks at the Exchange, finally found one that works consistantly.

I havn't had time to re-read the IC, so Im a bit in the dark about what's happened over the last three months. I'M alright, mostly surviving off of pain killers and smuggled candy from the NEX, otherwise im in a good mood from getting my paperwork done and my date set for friday.

I've got something resembling a life set up back home in Florida waiting for me, so I'm good on that front too. At this point im stalling for time because typing on a keybaord for once feels great, as much as the nerves in my hands are protesting.

See y'all soon.
Hooyah Seperations!

[Of the Quendi]

No he’s not. He’d have to murder the three matriarchs of House Cynis to officially be the head of the house.

Well is that an option then? I kinda wrote my app on the assumption my character's father was the head and then after his death her brother was the head of the family as I thought this was okay.

[Imperialisium]

No he’s not. He’d have to murder the three matriarchs of House Cynis to officially be the head of the house.

Well is that an option then? I kinda wrote my app on the assumption my character's father was the head and then after his death her brother was the head of the family as I thought this was okay.

They’d start out alive. But they loosely govern House Cynis so the various familial branches more or less do whatever they want, with the various family heads of their own branches more or less pursuing their own agendas.

[Of the Quendi]

They’d start out alive. But they loosely govern House Cynis so the various familial branches more or less do whatever they want, with the various family heads of their own branches more or less pursuing their own agendas.

Alright I will try to rework my app to reflect that.